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Monthly Archives: June 2013

When eight-year-old Amelia Irene Penny-Baldoni and her dad from Rome recently needed to arrange a meeting with her grandmother from Toluca for a drive on to Henry, the little girl knew just the place for that purpose.

“When I talked to her, she said, ‘Grandma, let’s meet at Frank Park in Sparland,’” said Ruth Petersen.

So three generations – Amelia, her grandmother, and her dad, Pete Baldoni – made the rendezvous an occasion for a quick picnic at the new and still-developing facility just off Illinois Route 29.

“It’s really nice. It’s a great place to stop,” Pete Baldoni said.

It also offered Amelia an opportunity to try out the new playground equipment that had just been installed a few days earlier by two village trustees.

“I like swinging in the swings and going down the slide,” she said.

To fall back on a cliché, the family’s comments were music to ears of trustee Ron Kingsley when repeated to him a few hours later. He himself had noticed that highway workers, passing motorcyclists, and others had often been stopping for lunch at the small picnic shelter that was built several weeks earlier.

“That’s great. It’s just great to hear that it’s being used,” he said.

The little site is being developed entirely through donations, with much of the funding coming from members of the extended Frank family, which has a longtime presence in the small community. But Kingsley has been leading efforts to organize volunteers to get things done, and he and fellow trustee Dave Murphy had constructed the new playground the previous weekend.

The unit was purchased from a Peoria business and delivered to the site with “some assembly required.” But it gave a whole new meaning to that term, because lumber was provided in 16-foot lengths that had to be cut for different specific purposes, Kingsley said.

“It was brutal, just brutal,” he said with a laugh. “Dave Murphy and I spent like 16 hours over two days building that thing.”

Grills will be the next immediate addition to the site, Kingsley said, and he and major donor Jim Frank of Springfield are also working to raise funds for a basketball court in the longer term. But the playground equipment was a major step, and Kingsley hoped that many other kids would follow Amelia in noticing and using it.

“It’s really starting to look like a park,” he said.

Gary L. Smith can be reached at (800) 516-0389 or glsmith@mtco.com. Follow him on Twitter @Glsmithx.

Lacon businessman Dan Smith has taken what might be called a community-based approach as one way to introduce area residents to the Marshall County Sand Trap, the multi-purpose dirt track that he recently opened at the east edge of Lacon.

For each of the various spectator events scheduled on Saturdays through the summer and early fall, Smith is offering free admission to the residents of one selected community in Marshall County.

This Saturday (June 29), for instance, all residents of Wenona will be admitted free to a classic car show that will feature an appearance by legendary drag racer “Big Daddy” Don Garlits of Ocala, Fla.

Smith, who announced the plan on the track’s Facebook page on Thursday, said later in an interview that it had occurred to him as a way to extend hospitality to area residents while also perhaps furthering his obvious business goals of attracting new visitors to a site that is unique in the immediate area.

It’s certainly not going to attract throngs of new customers who don’t have any interest in the motorsports-related activities going on there, Smith emphasized. But a free gate could be tempting to some folks who are curious enough to take a drive to Lacon – though maybe not enough to pay the usual $6 for spectators 11 or older.

“I thought it might be a nice little advertising event,” said Smith, who was monitoring Facebook traffic on the site as he talked on the phone. “Once people start talking about it, then people who are interested in those activities might come to see what it’s like.”

The facility features events like motocross and ATV racing, mud bogs, and demolition derbies on some Saturdays – all likely to be acquired tastes for a devoted but limited fan base. So Smith is kicking the plan off with the vintage car show, on the theory that some people who probably could not be bribed or forced at gunpoint to attend a demo derby might get a kick out of seeing old Mustangs or Camaros and their predecessors.

“I thought the car show would be a good way to start it off,” he said.

Anyone with a photo ID listing a Wenona address will be admitted free to the car show, which Smith expected to draw about 110 vintage vehicles, including one owned by Garlits. He said the towns chosen for free gates at future events will be announced each Thursday on the Facebook page for Marshall County Sand Trap.

Gary L. Smith can be reached at (800) 516-0389 or glsmith@mtco.com. Follow him on Twitter @Glsmithx.

One of the latest points of friction between new Henry Mayor Randy Constantine and some City Council members is his decision to consult with a Peoria law firm on some matters.

Two of six aldermen voted against paying the city’s monthly bills at a June 17 meeting after a discussion citing Constantine’s consultation with Rick Joseph of Miller, Hall & Triggs LLC, along with references to two council members separately consulting with local attorney Ryan Anderson.

It began with Alderman Jeff Bergfeld questioning bills submitted by the Peoria firm. “My concern is that we’re spending quite a bit of money on Miller, Hall & Triggs, and we (on the council) are not privy to that,” he said.

The bills, dating back to May 7, amounted to a little over $2,000, Constantine said later.

“They’re all in my files,” City Clerk Jean Goldner told Bergfeld.

This issue has some history here. MHT, mostly through Joseph, was the city’s law firm for many years under former mayors Jay McCracken and Daryl Fountain, and the fees gradually generated increasing concerns, particular during lengthy litigation over a gravel pit north of town. When Dave Donini ousted Fountain four years ago, he appointed Anderson to the post.

But when Constantine was sworn in after defeating Donini, he appointed MHT as a kind of co-counsel with Ryan to be consulted whenever the firm’s special expertise might be useful. He reminded council members at the meeting that they had approved that step.

“When we appointed Ryan Anderson, we also said that we were going to use Miller, Hall & Triggs at the discretion of the mayor and (Anderson),” Constantine said.

That did not satisfy Alderman Bob Hankins, who suggested that the council should know about such consultations before seeing the bills for them.

“I for one think we all ought to be informed,” Hankins said.

That triggered a brisk response from new Alderman Shawn Carr, who also had defeated an incumbent to win office this year. He pointed out that both Bergfeld himself and Alderman Ron Friedrich had contacted Anderson on their own about matters pertaining to the police committee, which Carr now chairs.

“So I’m asking,” Carr said, “is it all right for everybody else to do it, but not (the mayor)?”

Constantine said he would start forwarding related e-mails to council members and also set up boxes in City Hall for them to pick up all printed material. But Friedrich and Hankins still voted against paying the bills, although Bergfeld joined the 4-2 majority to do so.

After the meeting, Constantine said a large part of Joseph’s work had been on issues related to the possible future annexation of property owned by Ozinga Materials Inc, the operator of the gravel pit and port development project. There are important questions about township and city jurisdiction over affected roads, he said, as well as about the use of the property.

“We want to make sure that we’re doing this by the law,” he said.

Furthermore, Constantine added in a later interview, he had been reminded by attorney Joseph that legal fees incurred by a city as part of an annexation agreement would typically be repaid by the property owner as part of the pact. So those terms will be included in any such agreement, he added.

“Anything we spend on attorney fees (on the annexation), up to $10,000, will be reimbursed,” Constantine said.

Constantine also said that he had informed Anderson and all council members that none of them individually are authorized to contact him for city legal advice without prior approval by the mayor.

“That will put an end to that problem,” he said.

Gary L. Smith can be reached at (800) 516-0389 or glsmith@mtco.com. Follow him on Twitter @Glsmithx.